Walt Disney Studios has just sent us these hi-res stills and publicity images from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice featuring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Monica Belluci and Teresa Palmer which we’ve added to our gallery for the film below (newest images first).

Lisa J. Haines has been promoted to lead public affairs for the Disneyland Resort. As vice president, public affairs, Haines will oversee external communications, internal communications, government relations and community relations for the Resort. She also will work closely with Disneyland Resort President George A. Kalogridis, serving as a member of his senior leadership team. Haines will report to Kristin Nolt Wingard, senior vice president of public affairs for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, filling the role that Wingard most recently held.

An ever-growing array of exclusive benefits for members of D23, Disney’s official fan club, now includes a special, limited-time offer from Adventures by Disney, which is offering $200* per person off of select vacations.

More than a dozen different itineraries can be booked under this special offer, including travel in the U.S., Europe, South Africa, South America and China. To take advantage of this special offer from Adventures by Disney, D23 Members must book their vacations before June 21, 2010, and travel must begin before April 26, 2011.

“D23 brings our members special access to the very best that Disney has to offer, and we’re really excited to be teaming with Adventures by Disney for this special offer,” said Steven Clark, head of D23.

In addition to a tremendous sense of accomplishment, a magical reward will await everyone who completes the Walt Disney World Marathon presented by Cigna in 2011: a new Mickey Mouse race medal and a free day at Disney.

As part of Disney’s ongoing efforts to encourage guests to celebrate the milestones in their lives at a Disney park, finishers at the Disney Marathon on Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011, will receive complimentary admission to a Walt Disney World theme park the Monday after the race.

Today we are blessed with first looks of several figures from the Alien Invasion project by MINDstyle. Featuring contributions from 30 Disney and Pixar artists, each have put their own individual spin on a blank figure in the shape of the LGM from the Toy Story films.

The exhibition tour kicks off June 15 at Hong Kong’s Times Square. For a preview of other figures from the exhibit, check out MINDstyle’s official blog.

We also get our first look at MINDstyle’s limited edition art toy collectible (ATC) of the main character from John Lasseter’s original short, Tin Toy. The figure will first be released at San Diego Comic Con. No word on edition size or whether it will be an exclusive to the SDCC.

The final block, a 260-ton portion of the ship’s bow, was added to the Disney Dream yesterday at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany, signaling its completion. Composed of 80 separate building blocks welded together, the next step for the Disney Dream is to have its interior completed before its inaugural voyage on January 26, 2011.

The largest in the Disney Cruise Line fleet, the Disney Dream has a length of 1,115 feet, a maximum width of 125 feet and weighs in at 128,000 tons.

Walt Disney World has provided us with this footage from the procession at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort earlier today. The newly crowned American Idol winner is seen traveling along the park’s Hollywood Boulevard with Mickey Mouse up to the American Idol Experience, where he addresses the crowd of fans and hangs out with Mickey and Minnie Mouse before heading inside into the American Idol Experience to make a surprise appearance. Towards the end of the video, Lee answers some questions including his take on the American Idol Experience, his new-found celebrity and his expectations for his first album.

A couple of brief refurbishment updates for Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World.

First, we realize we caused some shockwaves when we first announced way back in March that Toy Story Mania would be closing for a refurb in mid-August. Many confused this with the recent TS3 additions that have already taken place, but the refurb is something completely different (reportedly something to do with unloading gates). And while Disney Parks has yet to confirm it, a recent tweet from DHS cast member @PaulChadkin confirms our announcement with a minor date change. According to Paul, the new dates for the refurb are August 16 through August 28 (opening on the 29th). Given this new announcement from another source we consider to be extremely credible, we will be updating ReSearch with these new dates.

Disney Parks has just offered up this television spot for the Summer Nightastic promotion kicking off at the Walt Disney World resort on June 6. The ad does in fact use the theme we introduced you to back in early May, but the video footage used in the commercials appears to be exclusively attractions from Disneyland (note the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster guns that can be held, the Mad Tea Party, the new dragon in Disneyland’s Fantasmic! and, I suppose, the Hollywood Backlot sign from California Advenure, amongst others).